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tv   Book TV  CSPAN  October 13, 2012 3:00pm-4:00pm EDT

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unions to a defense of free enterprise politics. also, it's in the sunbelt, the south and southwest that we see the rise of what we by the 1970's would come to talk, as the religious right, the rise of evangelical voters involved in the political process in important ways. so at the forefront of all of those issues in his own politics. national defense. a staunch anti-communist to play the important role in right wing into communist populist politics the late fifties and early 1960's. one of the things that led to switch parties in 1964. he was a key figure opposing labor unions. he did so well along people like barry goldwater. even though early in his career a staunch advocate of unions in south carolina. he switches in the 50's and
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60's. becomes a die-hard supporters of business against lever. he also, an important role in conservative evangelicals politics. he joins the board above jones university in 1950. he does it to win votes. in the up country of south carolina. ..
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>> at 12:45 a.m. eastern, 945 pacific, reporting on the
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largest manhunt in modern california history. booktv visits the united states naval academy. politics, history, and war will be covered. visit booktv.org for a complete schedule of this week's programming and watch as all become weekend long on c-span2 and a booktv.org. up next, dakota meyer talks about the battle in afghanistan and his efforts to rescue soldiers that were ambushed by taliban forces. dakota meyer became the first living marine to receive the medal of honor since the vietnam war. this is about 45 minutes. >> i would like to welcome
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everybody. this is my official welcome. we are honored to have you here today. we are part of an elite club of authors. there are many that are active here in the american legion post the other thing i want to mention is each of you have a card that looks something like this. several years ago, we began a program called support the troops. the weather was books or dvds or
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even ipods, batteries, some of the things that they let us know that they needed, and we collected a few boxes and sent them to the troops. each year it has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. i think last year we sent over 300 boxes to the troops, and we collected a lot of money, which, of course, if you come to the event and you haven't brought a set of batteries, don't need to feel that because there are 25-dollar bags, 50-dollar backs, 40,000-dollar bags, if you want to bring now. and we will feel them with weapons that they need. the speakers will be spectacular. i hope you come and will bring whatever you can. bring the big check the we are talking about. one last thing the bible say, and that is if you have a cell phone, this would be an appropriate time to turn that off so that no interruptions
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come through. i'm going to introduce you to mike, who will tell you about the leading authorities. >> thank you, denny, i am mike, i am the leading vice president here in chicago, first, i would like to thank you for partnering with us on this event. as denny said efforts, we are working together on this.
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and i hope it will be the first of many collaborations. we are very excited about the event and i will introduce what is going on. if any of you have meetings, events, things like that where you're looking to program not, that is what we are doing. we are partnering with different organizations, trade associations, corporations right now speak to their members and employees and families and things like that. i have a couple of colleagues with me, matt jones is at the front table. if you have any needs, see us afterwards and we would love to talk to you. today i have with pleasure of introducing dakota meyer. he is the recipient of the military of honor. he is the first living marine to receive the medal since 1973 and is also one of the youngest. the marines went missing after being ambushed.
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he saved his comrades for it for his actions that day, president barack obama awarded him the medal of honor on september 15, 2011. meyer was also inducted into the hall of heroes and honored with a parade. since then, he has raised more than a million dollars to help send wounded marines to college. finally, as you have seen, he is the firsthand account of the most extraordinary battle, as told in "into the fire." i want to show you the video itself was a little little bit more about this. thank you. >> is frustrating because everybody wants to get interview about the worst day of your life you might give us a straightforward mission than 21-year-old sergeant dakota meyer had been assigned that day. meyer waited anxiously by the vehicles as his team began to
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patrol a village on foot. as they approached, the lights in the village blinked off. all hell broke loose. more than 50 insurgents fired from positions on the mountains surrounding the valley and from within the village. back in the vehicles, meyer for the firing and could see into the village. wounded, but steadfast in his decision, sergeant meyer entered the field zone four times, swapping out guns and drugs and rescuing his trap and wounded comrades with each ride. >> he is a guy who gets the job done. he has earned our nation's highest military declaration from the medal of honor. we are extremely proud of sergeant dakota meyer. >> they are often called the bravest of the brave. as the first living united states marine to receive the honor in 41 years, sergeant meyer is only the third living recipients of the vietnam war.
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>> on behalf of the guys that died, on behalf of the guys that have passed before, on behalf of the marines and those that are there fighting every day. >> today, sergeant meyer has dedicated his time to benefit the children of fallen marines. he is also issued the dakota meyer scholarship challenge to match his efforts with the goal of raising an additional $1 million. he also wrote "into the fire: a firsthand account of the most extraordinary battle in the afghan war." leading authorities would like to thank the union league of chicago for its generous support of today's program. humble, courageous, and determined, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome sergeant dakota meyer. [applause]
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>> thank you so much. >> i have a question, do you think that i can go out and show that video where dakota meyer gets the died untrendy job done and it will give me a job? i would like to thank the club for having me here today and letting me share my story. helping me get up to crowds in getting crowds here to share my story as well. i want to thank all of you for showing up. i really appreciate the support. i would like to start off with a question of why am i here today? why am i standing in front of you in getting ready to give you all of speech? i'm 24 years old and a sergeant in the marine corps.
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more than likely in some way shape or form, you may have heard of me by now. it all started off as i was a typical high school student. seventeen years old. i was walking through my lunch room. i knew everything back then. marine recruiter sitting in the back corner, it looks like he could've been the president of the united states. i went up to him and i started asking a lot of questions. what's the score from how did you get that?
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so i went back and my lunch. that was over, and i came back, and for those of you that don't know me, i don't take a challenge very easily. and i guess that we don't take no very easily either. i went back to my room and i started thinking about it. he had challenged me, my recruiter. and i said, do you know what? he says, let's go. i did not tell my father. we went up, sign the papers, we came back, and we were sitting in my living room -- actually, at my kitchen table. and my dad says what have you
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done now? i said dad, i want to go in the marine corps. i've decided. and he said you were going to play football yesterday. and he said, have you really thought about this? so now i'm listed in the marine corps. june 18, 2006, which i will let you know is the date i will never forget. i shipped off to the military and that is where i would spend my next birthday. my 20th birthday i was in hell week, sniper school, in california. i have a lot of good birthdays. after that i went off the next four years, and this is where also attended sniper school.
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i quickly shipped off to iraq. i didn't get to complete my to her because i was bitten on my right hand by a vicious enemy spider, and i actually suffered severe nerve damage. so i had two years of additional training, waking up, trying to get my hand back. so we head back into combat. and i said, what's the mission? and i said okay, i'm ready to go.
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you want to talk about a complete culture shock, i can tell you right now that i got one. we did everything from eating to drinking, civilian volleyball courts, mission planning, hearing about the stories of their life. and i want to talk about the afghans later on in the current events. one of the best selections i think this tommy was, it is not to look at the world and not to judge people by their religion, their skin color, their financial status, anything like that, with the acceptance of who they are.
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the world is only this big and that's how it is, because that's how you were taught. if we were so fast to judge one another, not really getting to know each other for what we are. i definitely did something that we cannot take two and listen to. [applause] part of my opportunity was getting to meet these guys and develop our team. because this is a group of guys about how my brothers.
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these guys don't ever ask about personalities or anything like that. they just put you in there and expect to get along. i was the only every 10 men of the group. so i didn't really care about it all, all the details, but i'm so excited i got to learn about afghanistan go there. what i learned is that these guys are the most important people in my life. we were there to support and care for each other. it didn't take a long time before the personality differences melted away.
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my pool team sacrificed their lives. we were running a mission and they took me out and replaced me with a sergeant, sergeant johnson. my assignment was to sit back in a secure position with all the vehicles. which i was uncomfortable with, but being in the united states marine corps, you really don't have much else choice but to
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follow orders. this is how i believe we will win the war. i believe that by having the support of each other and stopping the war of terrorism and fighting against the taliban, that is what we were trying to do on this mission. it was an ambush, and it was big. it didn't take me long to realize that it was not a normal ambush. the dust comes in, you try to figure out any situation, and then your training kicks in and you do start doing your job after about 10 or 15 minutes. but not in this fight. it was like one thing after
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another. everything started to fall apart. everything that we relied on to help us fight, it wasn't happening. it was like the mission was bawling like a house of cards. the enemy was taking full advantage of it. after some period of time, we were sitting in a vehicle, we figure out we had to do something. we could not just sit back and watch anymore. each time we were told no. we looked at each other and said we have to go in because that's what brothers do for one another. we knew when we were going on her own program, that the situation wasn't as bad as we thought it was, but we were going to have to answer why for it. but i would rather be here answering for my team being alive today and it not being as bad as it was, been standing here or somewhere else and
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knowing that my team is dead and i didn't do anything. as we were going into my third lieutenant johnson start calling our mission. he starts calling in. the format he calls his spot on. the response he got back was, the location was too close to the village. he said if you don't give me these right now, we're going to die. well, try your best. three minutes later, and what comes over to the radio, there's so much radio traffic going over the radio. it causes confusion.
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i tried to locate his position on the map, and go straight to him. i got the first three grades out and then my partner stopped. that was last time i ever heard from my teammate. after six more hours of evacuating out, afghan soldiers and wounded marines, missing eyes, a helicopter spotted some guys in the trench. when i got to them, i immediately knew that they were all gone. surely, it can't be all of them. it cannot be true. i checked each one of them for appall zanardi confirmed what i knew. and they all fell together, doing their jobs, as they have sworn to do the data they set foot in the military, which every man and woman does when they enter the military. they paid the ultimate sacrifice. i'm sure that you can see the scene now.
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my actions have been recognized as outstanding and courageous for that day. but for me, it's only the exact opposite. because we live by the words you never leave a fallen marine behind. or you die trying. and if he didn't die trying, you didn't try hard enough. i was doing what my brothers or any other marine would've done for me. and now i have have been honored by our country and the president of the united states, and i stand before you as a medal of honor recipient. how i feel about it, i'm sure you can see why have trouble with it being called un-american medal of honor. if this is what it feels like to be a hero, you can have it. i am not a hero. they are. so i've decided that day i would accept the medal of honor on behalf of all the marines and
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the men and women who have sacrificed and served so much for our country and all the families who have done so much as well. because i am just one of thousands of marines who would've done the exact same thing in that situation. all the credit goes to my family and the marines and their code coach never leave a fallen man behind. because like i said earlier, i truly truly believe that any man and woman who stands up and raises their right hand to put their life on hold for our country, we have done the exact same thing in any situation . during that time, not a single day passes that i wasn't caught with the thoughts of frustration, guilt, anger. but what the what-if questions. we have all been through it. i look at this and try to figure out how did i survive?
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why did i get an opportunity to live? why them and not me? i still ask everyday the exact same questions. i decided that i can take this opportunity to grow and i can take this opportunity to educate and learn. i assure you that the opportunity that unfolded on september 8, 2009. it forever changed my existence and life. just imagine in 24 years old on a construction site one day. you get a call in your cell phone. someone telling you that you will receive the medal of honor.
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you're an overnight sensation. let me tell you, don't envy me. talk about pressure and stress. that goes back to that day. i'm just going to tell you how i really feel. i look at everything. the president called me, it all started off, he called me on my cell phone. and he said you know what, dakota, you are getting ready to receive the medal of honor. we need to start planning for it. if planning her wedding is like planning for the medal of honor ceremony, i'm out on the wedding. [laughter] i told him, you know, i said i don't want the medal, i don't feel like i deserved it. i started bargaining with him. i said he could give me a navy cross, and that we had to back and fight. so he said that's not what happened. the president called me on my construction site one day and i
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was talking to him and i said, you know what, sir, would you please not give me the medal of honor. i am nothing but a failure. please do not do this to me. and he said, you know what, it's bigger than you. it's bigger than me, so i started thinking about that. and i really got frustrated. i thought, bigger than me? that's the best answer you can give me? you're your documents my whole life. so thinking about it, i went through the frustrations of drinking every day, drinking an average of a bottle of crown royal a day. the frustration, guilt, and i started thinking about it. i look down at my mirror, and i look at the shirt i have with all four names on it. why am i not taking advantage of my life. when i started thinking about it, those guys are in a better
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place. i'm just sitting here feeling sorry for myself. i need to go on and start making my life better and live life to the fullest. with that, i came up with my own series. you can imagine this and what it will be like. out of the marine corps, we get out, were frustrated. we are out of the marine corps, how you train and stuff -- but i look at it as the marine corps is, as a whole, they have the best setup that i've ever seen. you can apply it to everything in life. because no offense to the other branches of the military, but you know how the marines are. they hold themselves to the high standards. no one can disagree on that. a nit pick at each other over the smallest things. a haircut, you have to get one every two weeks. we do this because in the marine corps, we have made a culture to where we would accept nothing
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less than being the best. we dictated a culture to where we want to hold each other accountable to where we will succeed. are we really that few in the crowd? who knows. it's just an ego thing. it doesn't matter. but what we have done is made a culture where we will accept nothing less than being the best. what is inside that, we have two things. opportunity and accountability. now, everyone in here will agree with me on every day we are presented with situations that are not favorable and we don't have control of them. so what those situations, you can either look at them in situations, but i start looking at them as opportunities, and maybe you look at them and say, well, maybe not everything is an opportunity. i use the worst-case scenario of a family member getting sick or a family member dying. is that an opportunity? no, it's not. but it slows your life down and make you start evaluating on how
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you live your life and everything like that. and after you start doing that and start using this opportunity to evaluate your life, it is at that point you need to hold yourself accountable to make sure that you change your life and think about the things you have overlooked everyday to every day to make it better. don't you agree? with that, i would also like to tell you something else that i have learned. i have learned about people. going around and meeting so many different people. i'm i am from a small town of kentucky. i travel 25 up to 28 days a month, and i speak numerous types of people. some of them are good, some of them are bad, some of them are crazy. but i like to say, in fact, what is a matter of fact, with these afghans now, -- these afghan soldiers, i still keep in touch with them every single week. and i want to let you know and
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assure you that these afghans have sacrificed so much to help us out over there. but the current situation that's going on, they always fail to give these guys credit. they are making him look bad over there right now. but i want to let you know that these guys are the and they helped me every single day become what i am. it is not fair for us as americans. because i didn't go over there and fight for republicans and democrats. i didn't go over and fight for any type of color, christian, muslim, i didn't buy for anyone. i didn't buy for anyone other than americans. i have used this platform to go
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out and make a difference. maybe you look at me now and say well, what can you say this? what you know? you are 24 years old. yesterday i gave out my first 12 scholarships from my foundation. it is the greatest thing i have done. i call that margaret davis before receiving the medal. i wanted to go out and make a difference. and i called her up and i said, you know what? what can i do to make a difference? i want to educate kids and i want to help them and i want to do what i can for marines. so let's start a scholarship fund. she said, well, on top of that, how much money do you think you can raise? i said, i don't know, about a million dollars. and she said, all right, we'll give you about a year.
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within four months, i raised $1.2 million. i did on my first 12 scholarships yesterday. it has been great. [applause] with that, i teamed up to go out and try to get veterans jobs. we are going out and speaking and i'm trying to help guys get jobs. i am standing up trying to make a difference. i hope when you read the book, you go home and you read everything that i talk about and how it makes a difference. and i want to say that i am going on and speaking and doing it for the men and women who sacrificed so much. because every day that you don't do that, if you don't do the best you can, you are disgracing all those men and women who have paid so much for. and i want to let you know something. i'm not okay with that.
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are you? thank you so much. i really appreciate it. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. >> i will have you come over here. [applause] >> i would like to open up for questions at the end. if you have any questions. oh, come on, i will start asking you questions if you don't start asking me questions. >> [inaudible question] >> how i see the rest of my life? that's a great question. i tell everyone that i have a construction company, i just finished a book, i am on the road quite a bit. how is the rest of my life?
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you know, that is a challenge that i had. i am 24 years old. and everybody agrees that we live our life to try to top everything that we do. right? well, one is listed at 24 years old? i have received the medal of honor. i have done so many things. what am i going to do the rest of my life to topic? i'm going to find something, i promise you that. it's going to be for someone else. it's going to be to make a difference and go out and say things and be true to myself and be true americans, and hopefully inspire the formation to stand up and start a culture like the marine corps does that expects nothing less than being the best and holding each other accountable every day. the rest my life is to was to out and make a difference. whatever that might be. [applause] >> thank you. >> yes, ma'am. >> [inaudible question]
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>> to be honest with you, i have no idea. i will find out. i get asked that question all the time, and i have never asked. i don't know. i wasn't there. i have a question right here. , it says, dakota, what are the things we can do to help servicemen and their families. to help servicemen and their families. i want to tell you that this is a topic that a lot of people get mad at me about. but guess what? i'm going to speak about it because i feel passionate about it. a lot of guys come back and they deal with the stress of the war and what is going on. and they deal with, you know, the events that occurred over there. what i believe you can do to help them out the most is hold them accountable everyday interactions. because just because -- i get so flustered when i see a guy belisle, especially a member who
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have served and done so much for our country, i get so frustrated when they don't go out. it takes every opportunity every single day, and they use something to hold them back, and they let something like ptsd hold them back. let me tell you something. these guys have seen what it takes to be able to live in this great country and to be free. they have seen it. and so for them to sit there and disregard what they have seen happen in to let them not go out and make a difference and be the best that they can every single day, it bothers me a lot. what can we do to help them out? well, don't forget. don't forget why you are sitting were sitting here and why you live in a free country. that is probably what is going to help out the most. thank a veteran. don't ever forget. take advantage of the freedom everyday, but don't forget why we are here.
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i can promise you there is someone getting shot at right now. there is someone who is scared to death for their life, and some family member who is wondering what is going on. it is not just about the men and women serving. it is about their families. we can't forget them, and i think that will be a big difference, in my opinion. yes, sir? >> [inaudible question] >> yes, sir. you know, in the marine corps, we are taught obedience to orders. but i wanted to do something else. honor codes and commitment. and accountability. just because of obedience to order, the bond which me and my brother, what we have is
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stronger than them meaningful orders because they held me accountable. they held me accountable to never leave a fallen man behind. that is what it was. like oh, man, i'm going to have to answer this, i said that the whole way. but it was the right thing to do. just because there is obedience to order, that doesn't mean it's always the right thing to do. i can go home at night and look myself in the mirror. >> [inaudible question]
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>> no, you know, it was a combination of all of them. you know, growing up with my father, my father always taught me to do what was right. my father never was into anything like that, he just does what is right. he does what he feels is the best for him. with the marine corps training on top of that, you know, it's the same thing in the marine corps. they just pounded him you even more. how did i not die that day? i don't know. i can't even begin to tell you. i do not know how i didn't die that day. every day that we have to live
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on is a bonus day. if you go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning, that's a bonus. we always worry about tomorrow when we just get through today. thank you. >> assad. >> you know, i don't ever want them to look back at me and say, oh, you made me do this, i don't want the guilt on my hands is something that happens to them.
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saying hey, i push you into this. i will give them the fact that they need to know so they can make their own decisions. that is all we can do. you can never make anyone's mind up for them. if you don't go to college, i do recommend going into the military. and i'm going to say the marines, of course, because i'm biased. [laughter] >> yes, ma'am? >> no, i don't. she said i'm not wearing my mail today. do i ever were? no, i do not. the only time i where it is when i am required to. it's not what i'm about. i am foremost a marine. i'm an american. that is why i wear american flag cufflinks. i will let you know that any man
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or woman serving, all of these marines, they should be wearing a metal. it is just as much their mettle as it is mine. if you have ever been in situation to receive a the medal of honor, raise your hand. >> [inaudible question] >> yes, sir. >> [inaudible question] i don't go out and speak all the time because a lot of people don't hear what i have to say. we get into rules of engagement and, like i said last night, i truly believe that anybody --
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any thing stopping me, it is just incompetent leadership not being able to make a decision. that's what it is. >> okay. >> [inaudible question] >> it's a great vacation. [applause] >> no, it was a wake-up call. you know, i can't really look back on a because i didn't get to experience it in that way. i was just doing what i was told. about a month ago, i didn't even know this was here. it seems like coming from this place in this place, it's so much longer. and it was because we take you
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all the way around to the other side. i was like oh, okay. thank you for having here today. i really appreciated and i appreciate the question. [applause] >> is there a book you would like to see feature goggle tv? tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> i hope that i continue to value what my father taught me about education. he often threatened to set me back to mexico if i can do well in school. >> is that it's very threat? >> it was because i really did believe him. >> you do not want to go back to mexico? >> no, i do not want to go back to mexico. and i wanted to make him proud. another thing i felt was because i begged him to bring me over here, i felt that i owed him
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out. i felt that i never wanted my father to say, i shouldn't have brought you. >> winner of the american book award and international latino book award. part of booktv this weekend on c-span2. as we enter these last few months, one of the great untold stories is not just obama versus romney. it is obama versus karl rove. he has put together over $1 billion that will be spent in these last two months. here in new york are not going to see much of it. it will be spent in the
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battleground state. he has become king of the super pacs. $1.8 billion. to put that into perspective, in 2008, mccain had 375 million to spend. this is a factor of five. you're going to start seeing it come out now. the other thing that i wanted to discuss his who is he, what does he do? he is a political operative. well, how does he operate? what does he do? and i talked to a couple of sources about that. one, who is one of the victims, said that there is a dark and terrible beauty about what he does. and i had another was a former cia agent who told me that you know, the cia could learn a lot from karl rove.
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in the way that he has deniability and all these operations that he does, he is very visible, he is something like 70% of name recognition in the united states, that is something that is up there with justin bieber. but we really don't know what he does. a lot of people don't. and when you go back over his history and look at the things that are starting to unfold in the election, he has one level after another. to me, the story became interesting because i think most people thought karl rove was finished in 2008 when the bush presidency started coming to an end. he had been forced out of the white house in 2007. he was the prime target in the two biggest scandals in the bush era. the valerie mcclain affair and
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the approval rating is lowest in the united states. even top republican strategists, like ed rollins, said that his brain was changed forever. no one would ever want to work with karl rove. the fact of the matter is that he was back working again within a matter of weeks. about a year after obama took office, three things happened. the first was from the united states supreme court. a single person in the united states that i can think of has benefited more from the supreme court and karl rove guys. two decisions. one of 2000 was bush versus gore, which put his candidate in the white house. in the second, in 2010, citizens
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united. and that opened the floodgates for contribution -- unlimited contributions. in many cases, from secret sources with no transparency whatsoever. but it is just unprecedented in history. the second thing that happened was with the republican party. he couldn't raise a dime. it came to light early in 2010, you may recall that there was a revelation in los angeles at the republican national committee had been entertaining at a lesbian bondage her club. for the party of family values, this did not work well. they could not raise a dime.
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in april, he had a luncheon in his house in washington dc. it was cohosted by ed glaspie, a former chair of the rnc. and they had about two dozen people over and came away with tens of millions of dollars. that luncheon alone gave them about four times as much money as the entire republican party. so karl rove was effectively establishing an apparatus. it gave them an enormous amount of power and authority with almost no responsibility. he had his hands on the purse strings. this led to the 2010 legislative elections. they raised a total of $300 million. they took 63 seats in the house. suddenly, obama's big advantage was gone and he had no real
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authority. so the question is, what did he do with the money? what is he going to do with the money? he is going to go into the battleground states. i started look at what he's going to do now. i decided to look at what he had done in the past. and i found again and again but a lot of it really had not been reported in death. one thing i found that he had was a huge technology apparatus. and i went to chattanooga, tennessee, and i found a company called star trek. i saw karl rove about your vote in ohio, and he told me he had never heard of it. well, i found that hard to believe. if you found out who put up the original money, the original money came from two very wealthy
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republican donors, mercer reynolds and bill dewitt. and i researched them. they had bailed out george w. bush several times. he had three oil companies in the 80s and each time they came to the rescue. bill dewitt owns the st. louis cardinals and his father had owned the old st. louis crowns. and they gave bush ownership in the texas rangers, which is one of the only lucrative investments that he ever made. his company, smart tech, soon became a republican operation. it is all good and well,
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conservative groups who have had their websites and so forth. but this was very unusual. and i saw george w. bush 43 was there. the republican national committee hosted its website. hundreds and hundreds of conservative groups were there. again, that is all fine and well. but this company, which is highly partisan, they also, over time, acquire contracts that probably should not have gone to such a partisan company. let me just say, first, if you are in the white house, your e-mail, according to the residential records act, are public documents. they are supposed to be posted on whitehouse.gov. but rove made sure that his e-mails were hosted on smart
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tech. that 80 of his staffers, other people who work with them in the white house, also had their e-mails there. so when rove was investigated for the valerie affair and the new york attorney scandal, suddenly, 22 million e-mails were deleted. these are all government documents. they have never been found. so that was one thing that he seems to have gone away with. another thing was in 2004. smart tech played a central role in the presidential election. the secretary of state, each state, part of their job is to oversee a fair and impartial election. he may have recalled in the 2000 election, kathleen harris in florida was secretary of the
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state of florida and she also happened to play a central role in the bush election and there was considerable controversy over that. well, very similar, something happened in ohio in 2004 where ken blackwell was secretary of state. again come he was supposed to oversee a fair and impartial election. he also happened to cochair the bush cheney reelection committee. he decided to tabulate returns for the 2004 election, the secretary of state's computers were not enough and they needed to get another set of computer servers. so who did he go to? he went to marquette -- smart tech. they raise an enormous amount of very interesting questions. there were civil lawsuits, you could see what happened, as that
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night wore on, i believe it was november 2, 2004, was a very close election. it was clear that who won florida, these were the last key battleground states, around 11:00 o'clock, the networks finally called it for florida. that meant that there was one crucial state outstanding, that was ohio, whoever won ohio would win the electoral college, the exit polls were in and they showed winning by 4.2%. millions of people started logging onto the secretary of state's computer website in ohio. traffic went through the roof. it went up 700%. suddenly, in county after
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county, in the next 10 counties in a row, this raises a lot of serious questions about who actually won the election. i went about as far as i could in tracing this down. in terms of pinning it down conclusively, unfortunately, there were still some unanswered questions. all of them vanish in a mysterious way. suddenly, over a million dollars were damaged or disappeared. in 2006, a new secretary was elected in ohio. she was about to take on her new office after she went in, she saw

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